VisualFX For ImageFX

When it comes to producing high-quality video effects, LightWave is a great program - but on the Amiga it can often lead to significantly steep rendering times. ImageFX can also produce high-quality video effects, but what if you need to process an entire Flyer Clip? That's a whole lotta work, and who's got the time for that? Isn't there some way of automating this process?

It was these problems which led to the development of VisualFX for ImageFX.

VisualFX provides a powerful front-end for Nova Design's popular ImageFX image processing software which will enable the user to easily build high-quality effects via ImageFX for rendering out as image sequences or NewTek Flyer clips.

Since ImageFX happens to be not only popular, stable, easy to use, MUCH faster than LightWave on the Amiga, and is also the perfect render engine for the NewTek Flyer, Visual Inspirations has therefore created an "engine for the engine". A program that will deliver the power and speed of ImageFX, and enables the user to look like an ImageFX professional - whether they currently are one or not. The savings in time which come from using VisualFX are quite significant as well.

Where LightWave would take 30 minutes per frame to render a video effect on the Amiga, VisualFX for ImageFX can render the same effect - and do it ALL in only 30 minutes!

VisualFX comes with volumes of 20 pre-set effects. The user simply previews and chooses the desired effect, answers a few questions onscreen, and hits the RENDER button. VisualFX then takes over and automatically directs ImageFX to create the effect and render it out as a Flyer clip or sequence of images.

VisualFX (hereafter called VFX for short) comes in 3 versions: 4 colors, 16 colors, and 256 colors. These versions all behave the same and produce the same high-quality ImageFX effects. The only difference is in how the preview FX will appear on your machine prior to rendering the finished product; the previews will be visible in 16 colors, or 256 colors depending upon which version you choose at run-time. The 4-color version is the biggest memory-saver because it doesn't even bother with the preview anims. It just displays blank, numbered boxes and when you click on one of them, a description of the effect it represents will appear in a little box onscreen.

VFX also requires WorkBench 2.0 or higher and at least 1 megabyte of RAM over that used by ImageFX.

As for how the program runs, how's THIS for easy?:

In addition to 20 li'l boxes for the preview animations, there are 4 li'l buttons at the bottom of the screen marked:

1. Load New Volume
2. Preview Effect
3. Setup Effect
4. Render Effect

In keeping with Visual Inspirations' philosophy of creating "User Stupid" Software which is extremely easy to use, believe it or not: that's almost all the description you need to use this program. The only extra bits you might want to know are:

"Preview Effect": When ya click on it, it'll run a little preview animation in the box at bottom center of the screen (unless you're in 4 color mode). This will show you what the effect will look like. If you like it, you select what images you'd like to use (instead of the ones in the preview - which are there just for the previewing). VFX will insert your images and manipulate them in the same fashion as the previews.

"Setup Effect": When ya click on this, the effect will be loaded and sent over to ImageFX so that you can, well.... set up the effect. You'll be asked what image(s) to use and, through various different questions based upon the effect currently chosen, it'll walk you through the process. Once you have set up your effect, you click on:

"Render Effect": Once you have an effect set up, this button starts the ball rolling. ImageFX will take over and begin the rendering process automatically. All you do is sit back and contemplate all of the time you're saving. You also have the option of continuing onward and setting up more effects if you wish. That way, you can pre-set a large number of effects to render overnight.

Basically, all you have to do is to pick your effect, tell VFX what images you want to use, specify how many frames you need, what format to save in, and where to save the finished effect. ImageFX then takes over and happily renders out the frames while you're over on the other machine surfing the web on company time.

VisualFX For ImageFX
Suggested Retail Price: $199.95 per volume
Special Introductory Price: $129.95
(Includes FREE Shipping)

Available from:

Visual Inspirations
809 W. Hollywood
Tampa, FL 33604

(813) 935-6410 Voice/FAX
(813) 935-6513 BBS

E-Mail: visual@vionline.com
URL: http://www.vionline.com/merlin/